Today's Kindle Deal of the Day is Extended Family ($1.99), by Patrick Kendrick, one of the authors signed by Amazon's new Thomas & Mercer imprint.Book Description
Dr. Harmon Gettys is the perfect man: tall, dark, handsome, and brilliant. He’d seemingly be a catch for any woman—especially those who desire an apparently charmed offspring. But Gettys uses his seed for murder, to create a legacy of violence.
For Fire Marshal Greymon Gift, gruesome burn-related murders are nothing new. But a sudden spike in his jurisdiction has Gift on high alert. When an FBI investigation links multiple arson scenes to the deceased Dr. Gettys, Gift is pulled even deeper into a case that’s hot enough to start a conflagration. He knows that even if Gettys were alive, such an assortment of violent crimes could never be committed by just one man. So who is spreading these horrors from coast to coast?
Gift and FBI Agent Rose Cleary partner up to stop the growing number of savagely murdered victims, but can they uncover the truth before they wind up on the list of the dead? Extended Family offers a thrilling look into the heart of darkness. Horrifying and suspenseful, the novel explores the idea that evil can be passed like a torch from one generation to the next. As Gettys proved—and Gift is about to find out—sometimes all it takes is a spark to set the family tree ablaze.
The Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK is Six books by Gerald Durrell for $1.53 / £0.99 each. Only the first one of the group has a US edition.Marrying Off Mother (Main / UK; $3.43 US edition)
In this collection of stories by naturalist and animal lover Gerald Durrell, we are introduced to an eccentric cast of characters, including a perfume-wearing truffle pig and his jealous owner; an ageing set of alcoholic southern belles; a young, handsome sea captain who meets a tragic fate; a whisky-drinking hangman in Paraguay who is haunted by his victims, and a foul-mouthed talking parrot. Told with Durrell’s characteristic charm and wit, these stories – some of which may or may not be autobiographical – are humorous, touching, and always highly entertaining.The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium (Main / UK)
If you loved My Family and Other Animals and can’t get enough of the Durrells after the Corfu series, this is the book for you. It constitutes a series of anecdotal snippets and short stories including ‘The Picnic’, a laugh-out-loud account of an ill-fated Durrell family excursion, which should have been a relaxing, jolly affair. But with the Durrells things are seldom straightforward and on this occasion all that could go wrong did go wrong - except Gerald Durrell's sense of humour in recounting the tale. Other hilarious and surreal Roald Dahlesque stories ensue, including the critically acclaimed Gothic horror story ‘The Entrance’.The Drunken Forest (Main / UK)
Gerald Durrell is among the best-selling authors in English. His adventurous spirit and his spontaneous gift for narrative and anecdote stand out in his accounts of expeditions in Africa and South America in search of rare animals. He divines the characters of these creatures with the same clear, humorous and unsentimental eyes with which he regards those chance human acquaintances whose conversation in remote places he often reproduces in all its devastating and garbled originality. To have maintained, for over fifteen years, such unfailing standards of entertainment can only be described as a triumph. The Argentine pampas and the little-known Chaco territory of Paraguay provide the setting for The Drunken Forest. With Durrell for interpreter, an orange armadillo or a horned toad, or a crab-eating raccoon suddenly discovers the ability not merely to set you laughing but also to endear itself to you.Beasts in my Belfry (Main / UK)
Gerald Durrell would one day become a much-loved conservationist. In Beasts in My Belfry he takes his first step towards fulfilling his ambition in this charming account of his job as a student keeper at Whipsnade Park in 1945. The eager young Durrell observes his co-workers and animal charges alike, including Albert, the ventriloquist lion, who amuses himself by jumping out at people. Whether getting dirty mucking out the buff alo enclosure or attempting to cajole a skittish gnu into a transportation crate, life in the zoo is certainly never boring.Rosy is my Relative (Main / UK)
What does a young man bequeathed £500 and an elephant with a taste for liquor do? Adrian Whistle thinks he has the answer — he’ll give her to the circus. But it isn’t so easy. Together Adrian and Rosy cut a swathe of terror and destruction through the peaceful countryside of southern England. Drunk or sober, Rosy spreads chaos in her wake, till her hapless victims claim the full majesty of the law against her . . .Menagerie Manor (Main / UK)
‘Most children at the tender age of six or so are generally full of the most impractical schemes for becoming policemen, firemen or engine drivers when they grow up... I knew exactly what I was going to do: I was going to have my own zoo.’ This is the hugely entertaining account of how the much-loved conservationist and author Gerald Durrell fulfilled his lifelong ambition by founding his own private sanctuary for endangered species in Jersey with the help of an enduring wife, a selfless staff and a reluctant bank manager. With a foreword by Lee Durrell, Honorary Director of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, this book about the trials and wonders of living in the middle of a zoo is a classic that will continue to bring pleasure to those who grew up reading Durrell, and deserves a whole new readership.
The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution ($3.99 Kindle, B&N), by Denis Dutton, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle.Book Description
The Art Instinct combines two of the most fascinating and contentious disciplines, art and evolutionary science, in a provocative new work that will revolutionize the way art itself is perceived. Aesthetic taste, argues Denis Dutton, is an evolutionary trait, and is shaped by natural selection. It's not, as almost all contemporary art criticism and academic theory would have it, "socially constructed." The human appreciation for art is innate, and certain artistic values are universal across cultures, such as a preference for landscapes that, like the ancient savannah, feature water and distant trees. If people from Africa to Alaska prefer images that would have appealed to our hominid ancestors, what does that mean for the entire discipline of art history? Dutton argues, with forceful logic and hard evidence, that art criticism needs to be premised on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and an uproar in the art world, The Art Instinct offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.
Drowned Wednesday ($6.15 Kindle, $1.99 B&N), the third in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, is the Nook Daily Find for Families.Book Description
The next spellbinding book in best-selling author Garth Nix's magical Keys to the Kingdom series.Everyone is after Arthur Penhaligon. Strange pirates. Shadowy creatures. And Drowned Wednesday, whose gluttony threatens both her world and Arthur's. With his unlimited imagination and thrilling storytelling, Garth Nix has created a character and a world that become even more compelling with each book. As Arthur gets closer to the heart of his quest, the suspense and mystery grow more and more intense. . . .
Grade Level: 4 and up
